


Don't Waste the Time

by Nightmarechaser



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Friendship, Gen, Immortality, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23506144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightmarechaser/pseuds/Nightmarechaser
Summary: Immortals are so very vulnerable to abuse, and you're just a mortal worried for your friend.
Relationships: Friendship - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	Don't Waste the Time

It is surprisingly easy for an immortal to be abused.

You don’t expect it, because why would you? They’re immortal. They’re older than you’ll ever be, they have more experience than you’ll ever have, they’re wiser than you’ll ever know. How could they ever be abused?

It’s easy to think of them like that. It’s all true. It’s only in the dark of night, lying across from them in bed, knee to knee but not touching, that you remember they’re not just immortal. When the moonlight hits their open eyes, staring at you in unguarded awe and no small amount of terror, when they look so very open and so very fragile, that’s when you remember. Their hand reaches out to touch your face, brush a lock of hair behind your ear, and then they swallow like they’re about to cry, and you remember that they’re people, too.

And people? People get lonely. 

Immortals get lonelier. They outlive everyone they ever love. 

It’s why it’s so common to see the “aloof” immortals. The ones who pretend not to care, try not to care, try to keep themselves at a safe distance. Because you’ll leave them, and you’ll leave them sooner rather than later. And when you leave, you’ll tear yet another hole into their heart that they won’t ever fill quite the same way again.

There’s a reason you’ll never hear them call immortality a blessing. Even those who searched for it.

But then there’s the other type of immortal. The ones who don’t act like they’re immortal at all. They live day to day, never planning, never seeming to think beyond lunch, loving fast and loving hard. There’s a tendency to think of these immortals like they’re mortal, like they don’t feel the years they carry.

It’s all an act, of course.

These are the ones who feel it the worst. These are the ones who throw their entire heart into each and every relationship they have, because how long will they have it for? A century, if they’re lucky. A blink of the eye for them. 

So they throw themselves into their loves, giving their all to every little thing. They don’t have long to enjoy it, so they want to enjoy it while it lasts. With a graveyard following their steps and an eternity ahead of them alone, what’s the use of arguing? A waste of time, that’s all. 

They’ll let him win, just to keep him happy, just to avoid wasting any of what little time they have with him on such small little disagreements.

And maybe he starts to get annoyed with how much time they spend running around the parks, playing games and people watching, says he feels neglected. That’s fine. They can stop it. It’s not for forever, they can pick it all back up in a few decades. They don’t want to waste what few years they have with him, anyway. They give him more and more of their time and it’s fine.

They move in with him, and you think it’s too soon but they think it’s not soon enough. They only have so much time before he’s gone, they want to get the chance to experience everything. They kiss him, they sleep with him, they move in with him, all too soon, too soon, too soon, and it’s all fine.

He asks them to help with chores and that’s fine, too. They’re living there now, they should do their fair share of the work. They’ll even do a bit more than their fair share of the work, to see him smile when he comes home. And then he starts smiling less, so they do more work, and he smiles less, and they do more work, and he stops smiling at all. He starts yelling when things aren’t done, and it’s fine, it’s their fault anyway, they should have had it done. They only have so much time with him, they’re lucky to have this time, they shouldn’t be wasting it by making him yell at them.

They start to dress less colorfully, more modestly. You get worried. They show up at a cafe for brunch and they’re wearing a long sleeve dress, and you ask what’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong, nothing’s wrong at all. He just doesn’t like them wearing revealing things in public. He doesn’t like when other people look at them, he gets jealous. You don’t think a yellow tank top in summer is unreasonable, but they say it’s fine. They don’t have much time with him, they don’t want to waste it arguing about little things. They’ll dress up again in a few decades, it’s no big deal.

They knock on your door one evening holding a box of precious things, gifts from previous loves. They ask you to hold onto it for them, and they look scared. They’ve always been a magpie, collecting trinkets for every memory, and he’s annoyed by how much space their knick-knacks are taking up. He’s been going through them and throwing away the ones he doesn’t like, and you know the subtext, he doesn’t like any of them, doesn’t see the value they placed in them. You’re concerned, but they just need to store these here, okay? He’s just annoyed by how much space they take up, so he’ll be fine as long as they get them out of the apartment. They look scared, like they’re afraid you’ll say no, and you can read this subtext, too. You store the box for them, safe where he can’t reach them.

Their hair is getting long, and they hate it, but he loves it. He likes brushing with it and playing with it and braiding it. Nevermind that he hasn’t done any of those things in a while. He likes how they look with it. He likes how it feels in his hands. They don’t like it. They prefer their hair in a bob, or shoulder length at the longest. They like how they look with short hair, and you do, too. They look confident with short hair, comfortable in their own skin. Their hair is growing down their back and they constantly look like they want to curl up and hide. It’s fine, though, they’ll just cut it later. It’s no big deal.

He says they’re too loud, so they get quieter. He says they’re too bright, so they dim. He says they’re too much, so they make themselves less.

You feel like you’re watching them disappear, but you can’t figure out what to do.

He tries to get them to stop seeing you, and that’s what breaks them. They show up on your doorstep sobbing, crying about how they can’t stand to lose you, too. They love him, and they don’t want to waste any of the time they have with him, but they love you, too, and they don’t want to lose any of you, either. 

He already drove away the rest of their friends. He spent months convincing them that they were annoying, unloved, hated. He spent months making them afraid to reach out to their friends, to see them, just in case they annoyed them. A missed call became evidence, a scheduling conflict a backhand. He let them cry on his shoulder as he whispered how much their friends hated them, and eventually their friends stopped calling.

Except you. You kept calling. You kept making brunch dates no matter how many they cancelled, you kept sending photos of kittens and puppies from the park, you kept inviting them to this or that, you kept trying. You were so tired, but you kept trying.

They had a fight with him, he didn’t want them to see you anymore. He said they loved you more than him. He felt rejected, he felt hurt, he felt betrayed. They’re sobbing into hot chocolate on your old sofa, wearing clothes he picked and hair they hate, and all they can talk about is how much they hurt him. They just wanted to see him happy, while they had the time to. They don’t understand how he could make them choose.

You don’t either. You don’t know how he could do a lot about what he did. 

And it’s funny, but it’s months later now and you still can’t convince them it was abuse. They skitter and ghost around your apartment like they’re not supposed to be there, like their existence itself is a nuisance you shouldn’t have to deal with. They flinch from anything more revealing than a crew neck when you used to watch them prance around in crop tops. You caught them scrubbing at the floors and the walls and the counters and everything, really, even when you told them they didn’t have to. They nearly had a heart attack when you did your share of the chores, staring at you with wide eyes like a lamb looks at the butcher.

But they still won’t believe you when you call what he did abuse. He never hit them, so they can’t be abused. They repeat it ad nauseum. 

You do your best to help, anyway. He told them they needed to lose weight, you make sure they’re eating. He told them they were annoying, you reassure over and over again that they aren’t. He made them stay at home, you take them to the park and down the boulevard, just like old times. You do your best to ignore the way they look over their shoulder to see if anyone’s watching them. When they bring home a new trinket, a colorful net of ribbons hanging from a frame, they look at you with such fear, like they’ve been caught trying to dig their way out of their prison cell, and you hang the trinket in a place of pride. 

You help them cut their hair. You’re not a stylist, but you have scissors and a mirror in your bathroom. You do your best to ignore how they tremble underneath you with each metallic snip. You ask over and over again, how do they want it, is this good, what do they want. They stop you once it’s shoulder length, they say it’s short enough. You think it’s good enough for now, you won’t push them further.

They loved him so, so much. You’re absolutely certain of that. Just as you’re absolutely certain he didn’t love them, not really. If he did, he could never have done the things he did to them. Maybe he loved the idea of them, if he loved at all, but he didn’t love them. Meanwhile they loved him enough to let him break them.

They love you, too. They’d let you break them, too, if you wanted to. After all, you have such a short time left, compared to them. It’s nothing.

It terrifies you.

You remember giving them their box of precious things back, pulling it down from the shelf in the closet and pushing it into their arms. You remember how they spent hours curled around it on the floor, hugging it to themself and crying. You’re scared of what could have made them so relieved to have that one box of precious memories. You know they had others, you know this wasn’t all of them. 

You can’t imagine breaking them like that. 

You put all your energy into putting them back together again. You try so hard to get them to stand up for themself, you do. You only have so long with them, and then they have the rest of eternity without you, and that terrifies you. It terrifies you, because you’re scared this will happen again, and again, and again. So you try, and you try, and you try to help them, to give them some sense of self-worth so that next time, next time they won’t throw themself away just to make someone else happy.

You love them, so, so very much. 

Immortals are so very lonely, so very desperate for any sort of affection. You’re reminded every time you hold their hand and they cling like you’ll take it away. You’re reminded every time you pretend to be asleep and peek at them through your eyelashes to see them staring at you with undisguised awe and a yearning hunger. You’re reminded when they slowly reach out to brush the hair away from your face, like you’ll disappear if they move too quickly.

Immortals are loath to waste what little time they have with someone. You’re reminded every time they turn to you and force a smile to hide their flinch. You’re reminded every time you ask if they want to do something and they respond by asking if you do, and then you have to ask twice. You’re reminded every time you hear them crying in the other room when they think you can’t hear, because they don’t want to worry you.

And when you quietly knock on the doorway and ask to come in, they open the door with a smile on their face and tears on their cheeks. They try to joke that it was just a sad book, but fall silent when you carefully wipe the tears away with your thumb. It doesn’t take much for them to fall apart, hiccuping and then sobbing. When your arms are around them, and you’re rocking them back and forth as they insist over and over that it’s nothing, it’s not big deal, that’s when you’re reminded:

Immortals are so very, very vulnerable to abuse.

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for a while, about an immortal who just let's a lot of things slide and doesn't say if they're uncomfortable because they only have so much time with their friend, and the friend then has to be like hey wait no what about you. Then i realized hey wait that could actually be bad, and went a dark route instead of funny route and explored that idea a bit.
> 
> As always, comments are appreciated and i love yall


End file.
